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When the visibly nervous, humbled quarterback from a small community college in Iowa pulled a black and purple hat out of a bag and lifted it toward his head, a tangible gasp went through the room.

It went through Pennsylvania, too.

This is Jake Waters. This is the best quarterback prospect coming out of the junior college ranks, and in the minds of many, the answer to Penn State's immediate future at quarterback. This is the kid who threw for 3,500 yards last season, won a junior college national championship and made Western Iowa Community College a destination for coaches from traditional powers like Alabama and Texas. This is a kid who Penn State coach Bill O'Brien flew halfway across the country to chat with Monday. This is a kid who said he told O'Brien he was leaning strongly toward being a Nittany Lion.

But that, certainly, was a Kansas State hat he donned as the crowd applauded.

"I really liked, obviously, both schools, and I connected with both coaching staffs, and I could see myself playing at both," Waters said. "But at the end of the day, it's just what I felt in my gut. I had a long talk with the Lord last night, and this was just in my gut. It was the best thing for me as a student and as a player.

"God just showed me a sign K-State was the place for me."

Whether it was God who handed it to them, or Kansas State co-offensive coordinator Del Miller, who paid a last-second visit to Waters just Wednesday night, Penn State finally had something it had miraculously been able to avoid over the last half year: A major disappointment on the recruiting trail.

The NCAA didn't issue slap-on-the-wrist sanctions to Penn State back in July. They were meant to cripple. They were designed to teach a lesson. Their purpose was to deter guys like Waters from even forming the desire to be student-athletes there. But the fact of the matter is, there have been amazingly few players like Waters, who weighed Penn State heavily against another school and turned the Nittany Lions down.

It's no small story that Waters rebuffing O'Brien and the Nittany Lions came on arguably the best recruiting week the program has had since O'Brien took over the head coaching job full-time in February. Last Sunday, after the coaching staff hosted its top commitments and targets on its biggest days of official visits all year, four players committed. Two were linebackers: hard-hitting Jonathan Walton of Alabama and Zayd Issah, a Harrisburg star who had once been committed to Penn State before the sanctions caused him to give Oregon a strong second look. The others were cornerback Anthony Smith and receiver DaeSean Hamilton, who helped rank the verbally committed members of the 2013 class 36th in the nation and sixth in the Big Ten according to Rivals.com.

Certainly, Penn State has had higher-ranked classes, and with no more than another scholarship or two to hand out thanks to the 15-scholarship limit detailed by the sanctions, it's likely not going to be a much better ranking come signing day in February. But considering all of the negatives surrounding Penn State over the last year, it's telling that this recruiting class is far from a total disaster.

Many of the so-called national experts assumed the Nittany Lions would have difficulty landing any legitimate prospects. But if this class remains intact over the next few months, it will include no less than four four-star prospects - quarterback Christian Hackenberg, tight end Adam Breneman, offensive lineman Brendan Mahon and defensive end Garrett Sickels. That's four more than many predicted Penn State would get over the duration of the sanctions, honestly.

But what O'Brien and his coaching staff are doing best during this recruiting season is creating as much room as it possibly can to reload the cupboard. Scholarships given to players who enroll early, for example, count against the 2012 class and not the '13 class. The difference? Penn State was allowed to bring in as many prospects as it could last season. So the fact that O'Brien and company has found four prospects - Breneman, Smith, defensive back Jordan Smith and running back Richy Anderson - who will enroll early will turn out to be a major bonus.

Be it the Nittany Lions' feel-good 8-4 record, or the potential of the offense to excel under O'Brien, the Nittany Lions are experiencing a recruiting rebound. Recruits like Issah and four-star running back David Williams of Philadelphia both backed away from Penn State after the sanctions. Issah re-committed. Williams reconsidered and set up an official visit after the turn of the year.

An argument can be made that for as much as the sanctions might turn away the recruits, the way Penn State played in 2012 is drawing them back in.

This might not have a great impact moving forward, but then again, it wasn't supposed to have a great impact at this point. And next year, when they hit the recruiting trail, O'Brien and his staff can make a different pitch to members of the class of 2014: if they redshirt, they will have a chance to play in three bowl games and compete for championships at Penn State.

None of those caveats applied to Jake Waters, though. As much as he tried to say that the distance from his family's Iowa home to State College, or the fact that he would never get a chance to play in a bowl game if he went to Penn State didn't factor into his decision, he barely hid the fact that both mattered.

Now, Penn State will be on the lookout for another junior college quarterback, a guy who can give Steven Bench some competition in the spring and Hackenberg some guidance in the fall. In an otherwise outstanding recruiting season for Penn State all things considered, it might all be judged on who Bill O'Brien gets to play quarterback next season.

It won't be Waters, the kid with the dynamic arm wearing the Kansas State hat. But Penn State should be thrilled if losing him is the biggest reason to be disappointed.

Donnie Collins covers Penn State football for The Times-Tribune. Contact him at dcollins@timesshamrock.com, read his blog at http://blogs.thetimes-tribune.com/pennstate/, or follow him on Twitter @psubst

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